| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: de Valois, who went about consulting moneyed people as to the safest
manner of investing this fragment of his past opulence. Confiding in
the future of the Restoration, he finally placed his money on the
Grand-Livre at the moment when the funds were at fifty-six francs and
twenty-five centimes. Messieurs de Lenoncourt, de Navarreins, de
Verneuil, de Fontaine, and La Billardiere, to whom he was known, he
said, obtained for him, from the king's privy purse, a pension of
three hundred francs, and sent him, moreover, the cross of Saint-
Louis. Never was it known positively by what means the old chevalier
obtained these two solemn consecrations of his title and merits. But
one thing is certain; the cross of Saint-Louis authorized him to take
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: place of refuge at all, it is desperate ground.
46. Therefore, on dispersive ground, I would inspire my men
with unity of purpose.
[This end, according to Tu Mu, is best attained by remaining
on the defensive, and avoiding battle. Cf. supra, ss. 11.]
On facile ground, I would see that there is close connection
between all parts of my army.
[As Tu Mu says, the object is to guard against two possible
contingencies: "(1) the desertion of our own troops; (2) a
sudden attack on the part of the enemy." Cf. VII. ss. 17. Mei
Yao-ch`en says: "On the march, the regiments should be in close
The Art of War |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: me) I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion
which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By
the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he
arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea,
that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least--in the
circumstances then surrounding me--there arose out of the pure
abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his
canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt
I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too
concrete reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: These grateful off'rings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now, and from hence, in ev'ry future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage
Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
With fire and sword pursue the perjur'd brood;
Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos'd to theirs;
And the same hate descend on all our heirs!"
This said, within her anxious mind she weighs
The means of cutting short her odious days.
Then to Sichaeus' nurse she briefly said
Aeneid |
